I’m frequently astonished when I hear the description of a soundstage by someone who really knows what he’s talking about. The Stereophile crew, Steve Gutenberg, and countless others hear—or claim to hear— when one violinist’s chair is out of line from the others and when the percussion players were forced into the bathroom because the studio was full. Issues like where the mices were placed, who stood where, and where the coffee pot was located are child’s play for these guys.
Is it “mices” or “mikes?”
This seems to be a skill, like juggling, which one could learn with a little knowledge and a little practice. Some of the super listeners have said as much. But search though I might, I can’t find the key to the kingdom, the door to the fortress, the . . . all right, I’ll stop beating that particular horse.
But if someone could point me to the Cat In The Hat, The Horton Hears Who, the McGillogoty’s Pond of the subject you would have my eternal gratitude.
It happened! My first time! But it was over so fast. Anyway, I borrowed my father’s car, picked up Mary Jane, and parked up on Cobb’s Hill. Then. . . No, no, not that story. The imaging story.
So I found two guys out on the interwebs who, without knowing each other, agreed on a number of points. 1) It’s rare. Very rare. 2) It usually only happens with acoustic music played by a relatively small number of musicians. So the list has been cut to to jazz quartets and quintets. Chamber music, too, although I don’t listen to much of that. Live music was also good, they agreed, and not necessarily live acoustic music. 3) it doesn’t happen often but when it does, it’s sublime, it’s the tops, and it’s worth all the waiting
They each had a system for setting your speakers up but I didn’t use either and I don’t remember either system well enough to tell you how to set up the system. I had pretty much given up by now so I just put on what I wanted to hear which, at the moment, was Richard Thompson’s live album made in Austin a few years back. (Genius.) He does all of “Mock Tudor,” then throws in a few hits from over. “Semi-Detatched Mock Tudor.,” I believe. Brilliant.
In my apartment, you have to move a stool to sit in the sweet spot. (It has other attractions.) I didn’t think anything of it until I noticed Richard essentially standing on the coffee table. It’s Paul McCobb so I was worried for a moment but Richard was weightless. The drums were just above him. I didn’t get a sense of fore/aft but there was clearly a sense of vertical dispersion. The two other guy were dispersed to the left and the right and I could see them on either side of Richard. This was it!
Steve Gutenberg seems like a pretty excitable guy and I could easily see him transforming that experience into words like “3D” and “holographic.”
First, Mary Jane, then the sound stage. I’m on a roll.
I’ve been helping a friend get into the hobby lately. He doesn’t have very good listening skills, but his system is getting more transparent. I’ve found it’s easier to start with the differences between speakers when getting him good listening experience. Then later on he’ll have a better foundation for listening to amps, dacs, cables. Speakers can be so dramatically different it really makes it easier.
As I see it, there are three possibilities why this “journalist” sees
precision that I can’t even begin to grasp: 1) My $3,000 system doesn’t
buy me admission to this phenomenon, 2) It’s all BS, 3) I lack knowledge
or understanding that the “journalist” has.
It could be a combination of all three. Your system, but more likely, your setup of your system may not be capable of some of the described phenomena. The audiophile world is filled with hyperbole. Sonic differences are typically described as dramatic and not subtle. Finally, the better reviewers have heard far more systems in more circumstances than the average audiophile. It's possible that they have truly heard something that you have not. Some even have the writing skill to describe it. Regardless, learn what you can, but don't take it too seriously.
Let me use this story, possibly true, to illustrate. A sports writer for a Philadelphia newspaper is in a bar early in the evening and spots the music critic falling down drunk. That night Ormandy is premiering some classical work and the music critic clearly is not able to attend. The next day the sports writer picks up the paper and reads a detailed review by the music critic of the Orchestra's performance. The sports writer searches out the music critic and asks him how could he write such a thorough review of a performance he didn't attend. The critic replied, "I'm a writer."
A PhD thesis that seems right on point. Note that in the abstract, of all places, the author notes that he’ll be using “vector base amplitude planning” so it may be a slog.
My apologies. That article is essentially a great introductory paragraph. Just when you think, “Aha! Now we’re going to get somewhere,” it’s over and they try to sell you speakers.”
"This is where a lot of the double-blind bias BS comes from. People who never learned to listen cannot hear anything there and so presume there really is nothing there. Prove it to me! They say. Learn to listen, you won’t need anyone to prove anything. You will know."
Bingo!
I especially liked the driving analogy that MC put out there. Here's another one ... I see yahoos riding motorcycles and bicycles in a dangerous fashion all the time. These are street riders. In order to become a safe motorcyclist or bicyclists, one needs to not only learn how to just ride safely, but also learn how to get out of trouble, and how to recover from dangerous situations. When it comes to motorcycles, one should ride dirt bikes for a period of time before attempting to ride on the street. Becoming a competent dirt rider will save your pitui on the street.
When it comes to becoming a good listener in the audio hobby, one should become very familiar with live music. Pay attention to the tones of live instruments. Then, try to emulate those tones in one's audio system.
When you look at a piece of art by Robert Ryman, it’s impossible to understand it without knowing a little bit about art history and knowing that Ryman was reacting against the heroic nature of the abstract expressionists who preceded him. (It doesn’t make Ryman any better, IMHO, but at least you know what he was doing.)
Audio “journalism” is clearly part of the high end marketing machine but when they talk about a system placing the musicians in space with such precision, when they talk about the soundstage extending horizontally outside the range of the speakers, when they talk about a three dimensional soundstage in which some of the musicians are behind other musicians, I’m lost.
Sometimes the piano comes more strongly out of the left side than the right. If I close my eyes and direct my thoughts towards the task, I can imagine the piano player being on the left side. But that’s not exactly what these “journalists” are talking about.
(I used to be a journalist and I’m protective of the term. “Working together, it took company CEO and myself only two days to build and position the speakers.” Are you kidding me? Whoever is writing that nonsense shouldn’t even be allowed to use words that start with “J”.)
As I see it, there are three possibilities why this “journalist” sees precision that I can’t even begin to grasp: 1) My $3,000 system doesn’t buy me admission to this phenomenon, 2) It’s all BS, 3) I lack knowledge or understanding that the “journalist” has.
As to the first possibility, my LS50s are said to throw a soundstage so I don’t think that’s the problem. I’m not in a position, don’t have enough knowledge, to declare this to be BS. But there’s lots I don’t know, much like I could look at a Ryman and not know what he was trying to do.
MillerCarbon’s very presence has attracted much of the action (that guy must have some history on this forum) but he encourages me to learn the terminology. I know a good bit of the terminology and it doesn’t help. Others are referring me to out of date links. I appreciate the effort but the question I ask can’t be an obscure one. I can’t be the first person to run into this wall. Answers should abound. I should have found them myself with Google without ever resorting to this board. If ignorance is my problem, I shouldn’t need Daryl Wilson in my basement to find an answer.
I’ve been listening to music for 40 years played out of every form of reproduction in existence so I don’t think that lack of experience is my problem.
Someone please tell me that I haven’t stumbled into yet another area where men who are smart enough to accumulate enough money to blow 100K on a stereo system live in a world of illusion. What does acoustic science say on the subject? If I was at Juilliard, what would they teach me in my intro classes? Hasn’t KEF, so helpful in so many ways, published something?
FYI - Tone is defined as a sound of definite pitch and vibration and Bandwidth is defined as a range of frequencies within a given band, in particular that used for transmitting a signal.
Neither one of these definitions has anything to do with volume as you claim.
One problem with your posts is it is hard to tell what you are saying. I would have thought you knew a little more about what you are talking about and maybe you do. You just lack the ability to write or say it correctly.
With that in mind when I read your posts I will try to interpret your intent rather than go off what you actually write. I do appreciate the other posts about learning to understand and interpret recorded sound which is certainly a learned skill.
That said, what remains annoying to many is your presumed authority based on so many years experience and your degrading approach in communicating your beliefs. You portray the image that you have heard it all and know what is best for everyone. It appears from your writing and mannerisms you are an older person, perhaps north of 70 which is okay but perhaps not entirely.
In that context I would like to ask you a couple questions.
1. Do you think the average 25 year old perceives sound the same as you? 2. Do you think you perceive sound the same as you did in 1990 when you first got into hifi? 3. Do you think you perceive sound the same way you did 5 years ago? 3. Do you think the subjective bias you show has any real value outside yourself? 4. Do you think your opinions are relevant to a person who can actually hear a 16 kHz tone?
Perhaps yes and perhaps no but certainly not always.
Dadork - great! I hope you enjoy it when it comes around. As I say, you probably know much of the basic theory they take you through at the start, but bear with it. I skipped some of it. Then those listening materials and tests came along and I kept failing... so I swallowed my pride, went back to lesson 1, paid attention this time, and eventually was able to get the tests right. Good luck!
LOL Driving skills does not make for a "GOOD" driver. It does makes for a driver with "KILL SKILL" at best.. WHY? The other guy is the problem, you just need a way out.. Remember that, YOU will never get in a wreck.. EVER...
Distracted driving is WORSE than a DUI x 10. At least one, you can blame on "one to many".. The other is "They just shouldn’t have a drivers license". Using a cell phone driving, Automatic 2 year in the pin.. NO EXECPTION. prison... Attempted murder! Second offence LIFE.
He was a good stunt driver. GOOD is followed by STUNT, it does not mean they are a GOOD DRIVER. Words count...
Besides I'll take a new Caddie with a rocket engine that runs on water, and pays me to drive it.. My kind of car..
OR A Roller will do.. Chauffeur please.. With a Chauffeurs Lic.. I use to have one.. YUP Class A doubles and haz certs.. YUP....
Make sure to pick the course where teacher will be more interesed in teaching you because you came to be taught than to brag about how much better he is than you who came for help with learning.
Things would be more easy to debate if we could be able understand the difference between sound and music, audio, acoustic, and music and their subordination to one another in speech and in musical experience....
Like the diffrence between mechanician, ordinary good driver, course pilot driver, test driver and stuntsman driver.... 😁😊
The OP asked for the key to the door of the fortress. Science and education is usually a good start. Just to puff that Critical Listening for Studio Engineers course I posted, I too have listened intently to music for 40 years or so, but I found the course invaluable. Not so much the theory - it was the listening tests. Each week we were sent sound files which explored the theory taught that week. (Eg here is a string quartet. Here they are again. What filter, set at what frequency, was applied in the second sample?). I thought it would be easy - maybe lots of us would. But it was really, really hard. But with teaching and learning and then practice it became easier as the weeks went by. I would never have got those skills without that input. It’s like playing tennis with your mates for hours and hours - you won’t get much better without a coach.
If you always do what you’ve always done, you will always get what you’ve always got.
You learn it and someone has to teach you. Very simple.. The number of people that talk themselves into hearing something is just NUTS.. MOST people talk themselves into hearing Shi$.. AGone is FULL of "what a difference" You learn to discern the difference by a teacher, not by listening on your own.. That is how you DON'T learn.. Professionals teach professionals. Rookies teach rookies what? What rookie learn..
I have a grandson, he won't shut up.. 6 years old. I have to tell him to LISTEN, pay attention to Grandpa.. Two ears ONE mouth.. use them accordingly, boy...
As far a drivers.. Have you ever had a wreck? NOT ME.. A million mile backwards, NEVER a wreck.. Think about that.. 15 ton service truck 40+ years NEVER a wreck.. That is the good driver.. Oh I did run over a guys CD cases after he left them under my tires to get them out of the heat. AFTER I looked under the truck.. AFTER, I almost took off his hand.
HE was a Fast driver too. Not a good one, but a fast one...:-) I knew race car drivers with no drivers lic.. BAD DRIVERS...OH YEA.. Real bad.. The most misused piece of tech on the planet. Everyone thinks they are for fun.. 20 tickets, 20 wrecks. Good driver.. PRISON! 20 years... or 89 days in a 4 x 4 cage... You'll straighten out...
I'm with millercarbon on this one. Obviously, 40 years of critical listening just isn't enough for the tech snobs ("sound engineers in academia.") I just need to take a course! Thank You!
All the above - MC’s oddness especially - is why taking a course like the one I posted, designed and run by sound engineers in academia (where rigour and science and peer review matter) is such a good idea.
It is a learned habit more than an ability, but it is also some learned ability born from an habit, linked to a specific acoustical environment, speficic gear, and specific musical sources which the listener, one step at a time learn how to transfer or translate into other acoustical environments, other gears, and other musical sources...
At the end the listener is able to spot and name details the profane will perceive akin to superhuman hearing ....
It is not at all supernatural, only an habit growing and transforming itself at different speed in us in relation to specific acoustical experiences, specific gear experiences and specific musical experiences...
Listening is an habit slowly transformed in a journey, one step in front of the other but on many roads....If not it will stay the same habit forever....
«I made love so many times i can now make it with my hands behind my back; or is it cycling?»-Groucho Marx
there you go slobbering on the page again. Yes, I used the word slobber. At first I was going to use dribble but you got so caught up in yourself that all you left behind was a bunch of slobbering babble.
" When people talk about tone they really are talking about volume. Frequency response is volume."
Yes, you actually wrote that. Frequency response is bandwidth and volume is amplitude. Do you ever re-read your posts before hitting the send button?
Yes but, um, do you? Bandwidth is the entire frequency range across which a component works. Do you ever read your posts before hitting the send button? Or do you just not know the difference between frequency response and bandwidth?
If you do know, then you deliberately edited my post to make it sound like I said something different. The full quote is:
When people talk about tone they really are talking about volume. Frequency response is volume. If the volume is equal at every frequency then we say it is flat. But all we mean is everything is the same volume. The full quote makes clear we are talking about tone, which is the relative loudness of different parts of the frequency range.
That's just what it is. When you see a frequency response spec, what does it say? 20-20k +/-3dB. The 20-20k part is the range. What do you suppose +/-3dB is? What do we measure volume in? dB. So it is frequency by volume. Just what I said.
Question now is, should I be like all the other butt hurt snowflakes, go whine to a mod, have your post removed? Or leave it up there for everyone to see just how bad you blew it? Tough call. I think I'll let you remove it, or someone else. Wipe up your own slobber.
I’d suggest starting with a single instrument whose sound you know well, ideally something with a full frequency range e.g.piano or cello.
Take a slow movement and try to focus on single notes: Initial attack, decay and reverb. Does it sound thin or full, too harsh or too soft? can you hear the harmonics of the base tone? Does it sound real or muffled or sharp?
Once you are comfortable with say solo piano move on to Trios: apply same approach to the added cello and violin. can you locate each instrument; is there air around each instrument and do they gell together? Go from there to say a Symphony for strings only: can you hear first and second violins, violas, cellos and double basses in their respective locations? Does it gell or grate with you?
going on to full orchestra: start with piano or cello concertos, same questions.
Only listen to large scale orchestral works once you have become really comfortable with all previous steps and with a bit of luck you might end up liking Mahler and Stravinsky! Most of all: enjoy the music
there you go slobbering on the page again. Yes, I used the word slobber. At first I was going to use dribble but you got so caught up in yourself that all you left behind was a bunch of slobbering babble.
" When people talk about tone they really are talking about volume. Frequency response is volume."
Yes, you actually wrote that. Frequency response is bandwidth and volume is amplitude. Do you ever re-read your posts before hitting the send button? I am not sure I found anything in your post that was at all useful. You seem to have little understanding of the recording and playback process and the way the human ear responds to sound.
The simple answer to misc-audio's question is to listen to the real thing and compare. Listen to the sound of a bow on a bass or fingers sliding on newly installed guitar strings. Yes, cymbals are good sources but you need to hear the real thing in order to know what they sound like. Not some digital recording. You also said:
"You can listen for hours and hours and hours and if that is all you do, just sit there and listen, it will get you nowhere."
You are so wrong on every level about that. If you listen to the real thing that is how you learn ..... and that's all there is to it. P.S. it doesn't take 20 years to know what a hummingbird sounds like.
It’s "mics". But you could be forgiven for "mikes". Mices on the other had is bad grammar for multiple rodents.
This seems to be a skill, like juggling, which one could learn with a little knowledge and a little practice. Some of the super listeners have said as much.
It is. And right, I have.
There’s many different ways to learn but if you think "just listen a lot" will get you there sorry, no way Jose. Will "just play catch a lot" make you a better baseball player? If you want to learn basketball, will, "just dribble a lot" be good advice? I don’t think so. Skills are skills. Skills involve technique. You learn the techniques, you practice the techniques, you develop the skill. Like that with everything.
It all starts with language. Give you a very apt example. Everyone thinks they know how to drive. One of the bigger obstacles I faced as a PCA Driving Instructor, everyone comes in with 20+ years driving experience thinking they already are a "good driver". Just like in audio, everybody been hearing all their life, everyone believes they are a "good listener".
With cars we teach the late apex line. Wait, what? Yeah. See what I mean? Bob Bondurant, you probably heard of him, most famous performance driving guru on the planet, says performance driving is all about controlling weight transfer in order to maximize the traction available for the functions of braking, cornering and accelerating. Wait- what? Did they tell you any of this at any point in getting your "driver’s license"? Of course not. You haven’t the foggiest idea how to drive. Just like right now you haven’t the foggiest idea how to listen.
At least you know that much. Which is a good place to start. Highly recommend Robert Harley’s The Complete Guide to High End Audio. There’s a whole chapter on listening skills, what they are, how to develop them. It starts with language. There is a whole glossary of terms. Lots of guys think this is BS, but you can tell the great listeners from the wanna-bees just by the way they describe things. The great listeners say they heard greater image focus, less grain and glare, a more liquid top end, etc. The others fall back on variations of, "better" or "I like" without ever saying why they like. What exactly? Don’t know.
This is where a lot of the double-blind bias BS comes from. People who never learned to listen cannot hear anything there and so presume there really is nothing there. Prove it to me! They say. Learn to listen, you won’t need anyone to prove anything. You will know.
A little knowledge goes a long way, but to be really good will take a lot more than a little practice. When I started back around 1990 it took me a good 3 to 6 months driving around listening to things to be able to hear the difference between two DACs or CDPs. Most times I heard no difference at all. Sometimes one sounded better than another, but I couldn’t say why. One day listening to a CD at home I heard the sound and something clicked and from that moment on my skills improved by leaps and bounds.
The difference was I had learned there are a lot more different qualities to sound than just volume. When people talk about tone they really are talking about volume. Frequency response is volume. If the volume is equal at every frequency then we say it is flat. But all we mean is everything is the same volume. Volume is nothing more than one thing being louder than another. Pretty rudimentary. This is where most of us start. But now that you understand this, look around, see how many are still on this first bottom rung of sound quality.
One of the few store salesmen to actually help me with this said listen to the cymbals, the way they tail off. First I noticed yes, the DAC he said was better the cymbals did tail off longer. Then I noticed something else. With one they made a sound like "tssss" with the better one it was more like "tsingggggggg". The attack was better, the sizzle was less strident, there was more body or ring to it, and it faded and tailed off longer into nothingness. Also the nothingness it tailed off into was blacker and quieter.
All these things from just this one sound. That is how you get to be a better listener. Not by listening but by thinking, examining, evaluating, comparing, and putting into words all the tiny little differences you are hearing. You can listen for hours and hours and hours and if that is all you do, just sit there and listen, it will get you nowhere. To be good you need to learn and practice the techniques. Harley’s book is the best way I know to get started.
Audio magazine are a source of information and entertainment. Good writers can entertain a reader with their descriptions of what they hear, but at the same time, don't take what they say too seriously. It's similar to sports commentators.
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